I'm best known for the things I stand against. This is by design. I am a contrarian, a gadfly. I'm not going to mention all of the kinds of things that democratic loving civilized people are against, like first degree murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, rape, child molesting, child pornography, slavery, corporate greed and the ensuing poverty of lower classes, religious and secular militant governments and gangs, Naziism, obstruction of justice, perjury, con artist scams, and so on, since that list is long. I do however, stand against some things that are controversial.

1) Religious faith. My particular niche is arguing against Christianity, especially evangelicalism. Of course this means I am against pseudo-science and all faith-based reasoning in favor of evidence-based reasoning.

2) Theocracies in their more extreme dictatorial forms as well as in elected officials and pundits within democracies like the US.

3) Racism, Sexism, Misogyny, Homophobia and gay bashing. I am not diminishing these things by listing them all together. It's just hard to know how to rank them. The common theme is that they stand in opposition to rich white heterosexual religious male power and privilege.

Okay so far? Sure, I need to flesh these things out more, something I don't have the time to do. But these are the top three things I stand against. I don't usually argue against (2) and (3) but they are the kinds of issues that motivate me the most since (1) is the main reason for (2) and a major contributing factor for (3). Anyone who agrees with me on (2) and (3) should be happy I argue against (1) like I do. I am their ally not enemy.

I'm writing this because of the present debate surrounding Freethought Blogs. I just think FtBlgers should know.

There are other things I stand against that are related to this debate (in no particular order):

McCarthyism in it's various forms.
Dehumanizing and/or demonizing one's opponents.
The unreasonable suppression of free speech.
Intolerance of reasoned disagreement.
Ignorance, irrationality and a lack of critical thinking skills.
Herd mentality, a circle-the-wagons group loyalty against reasonable outsiders.
Largely unnecessary divisiveness among atheists when we have a common enemy.
Bullying.
A hero/heroine cult of personality.

Sure, I need to flesh these things out as well, something I don't have the time to do. And it looks like I can't count since there are more than ten total things here. Some of them express similar ideas though. But when fleshed out I think most all reasonable people should agree on them, at least I hope so. In any case I stand against them most strenuously, vehemently in fact.

I have seen these kind of traits coming from some but not all of the FtBlgers and their commenters to various degrees. I hope for better as they make some necessary changes. We're waiting. I know they can do better.